


A Small Window

by WayFish



Series: Looking In [2]
Category: The Following
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Angst, Cell Phones, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Masturbation, Porn Watching, Sex Tape, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 05:07:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WayFish/pseuds/WayFish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan finds Weston’s cell phone in the shambles of his hotel room. He forgets to give it back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Small Window

**Author's Note:**

> Please note, this story involves an OC from another fic. I tried to make this one coherent as a stand alone. But if there’s anything that doesn't make sense check out part one of the series, “Exactly The Way He Imagined It” or, of course, feel free to let me know in the comments.

Ryan stops at a liquor store on his way back to the hotel.

 

It’s been a couple days. But the way Weston had looked at him when he said it was etched into his mind. So adoring. So expectant. “Ryan, this is my boyfriend.” So hopeful and wanting of approval. But nothing more than that. He stands in the aisle pretending to browse and he wishes that he could fool himself into believing differently. That maybe this was some sort of power play. Weston teasing him, making him work for it.

 

He’d be happy to work for it. Well, to a point. Ryan might be good at lying to himself. But he’s not that good. The clerk at the liquor store doesn’t seem to speak english. He just points at the total on the cash register. And when Ryan reaches into his pocket to pay the unspeaking man thats when he finds it.

 

The room that they took Weston from was still technically a “Crime Scene”. So when he cut the red tape seal with his credit card and busted the lock on the hollow core hotel room door everything was just where they’d left it. In shambles, but where they’d left it. He’d been able to grab Weston’s bag from the closet and go. And on the way out he saw it. The cell phone, Weston’s cell phone, lost in the  scuffle and peaking out from under a chair. He’d grabbed that too, shoved it in his pocket, and headed to the hospital. And he guessed he must have forgotten. Yeah, he’d just forgotten to give it to him.

 

Sitting on his own hotel balcony that night, in a lounge chair, bottle of vodka and bucket of ice by his side, Ryan boots up the phone. He’s not entirely sure what compels him to do so. And he’s slightly amazed that it’s still holding a charge. But he starts poking around.

 

Most of it is ordinary. But then again, he’s not sure what he expected. There are text messages. Some from “Teddy” the young man from the hospital, of course. Some from Ryan. Others from Parker. A few from his Mom. There are a lot of photos of a dog. Of Weston and the young man. At a concert. In the stands at a baseball game. Kissing in the center of a crowd. People around them are cheering. Yelling. Wearing stupid glasses. 2013! And what strikes him is how oblivious they seem to be to all of it, how wrapped up in one another they are.

 

There is music that he has never heard of. And there are videos; of the dog, of a Holiday meal, of the young man from the hospital eating a frenchfry and dripping ketchup on his shirt. And others, too. A series of them. All shot on the same night, according to the time stamp, just before Weston came to Boston.

 

The first one starts like a photo. The two of them, Weston and the young man stare up at the lens. It’s like any photo of a couple. They look happy and comfortable and for a moment Ryan thinks there must be something wrong with the phone because they’re so still. But then Weston turns and says, “What are you doing?”

 

The young man kisses his neck. And Weston says, “Oh god, you’re filming this aren’t you?”

 

He grins and tugs at Weston’s hair which is longer and curling at the ends. He sighes. There’s a rustling as he pulls the other man’s shirt over his head. Ryan hits pause, strips off his own t-shirt, slouches down in his chair and hits play again.

 

At first it’s fuzzy, just a mass of dirty blonde curls out of focus in front of the tiny lens. Weston kisses the man’s chest, moving down, nosing the line of his ribs and nipping at the flat of his stomach. As Weston pops the button on the young man’s jeans he looks up past the camera with those blue eyes, with a look of adoration so pure it makes Ryan’s chest ache. And then he drops to the floor between the young man’s knees.

 

He wants something to be wrong with it. He wants an excuse to not like the young man. But then the he reaches down, stroking under Weston’s chin, just like he had in the hospital. Smoothing back his hair. “You’re so... good,” he says.

 

Weston rolls his eyes and eases the man’s jeans off his hips.

 

“No. Really. You are-” And Ryan doesn't see it coming. Just from looking at the two of them he wouldn't have thought. But Weston sinks his teeth into rise of the man’s hip and he lets out a soft whine. “You’re so so good.”

 

By the time Weston takes him in his mouth the wrongness of it catches up with him. And Ryan knows he should stop. But instead he slips his hand beneath the waist of his flannel pajama pants and, iphone propped on his chest, tries to match Weston’s pace. He’d had so many of his own opportunities to tell Weston that he was good. And he’d let them all slip away. The phone gets dropped not long after. It hits the carpet and the video goes dark. There is giggling that devolves into moaning.

 

The next one is better. But not, at the same time. It starts more brazen. So much so that Ryan almost laughs. Weston is kneeling at the foot of a bed with all white sheets, in his boxers, hair a mess, looking so fucking young it’s ridiculous. He’s got the camera aimed on his own reflection in a full length mirror on the back of a door and he’s showing off, sliding his free hand down his chest and stomach, slipping his fingers just inside the waist of his boxers before starting all over again. And the young man, he’s standing beside the mirror with his arms crossed over his chest.

 

“You’re so cliche,” he says.

 

“You said be creative,” says Weston.The young man continues to glare. And he says in a wheedling tone, “Teddy, this was your idea.”

 

He huffs, but crawls into bed anyway, on his hands and knees, facing the mirror. Weston bends down over him, one hand around the man’s waist, the other aiming the camera, and presses a kiss to his shoulder. For a moment he just holds him like this, kisses the man’s ear and neck and back and whispers something that the phone doesn’t catch. Whatever it is the young man shudders and nods in agreement. He takes a deep breath. Weston grins, kneeing the man’s thighs apart, pulling his hips up and back and with a handful of hair shoves him, head and shoulders, down into the mattress.

 

It's off to the races. And it strikes him as strange. Because when Ryan thinks about it he thinks of Weston as the one on all fours. He thinks of fucking Weston. But then Weston is spreading the man open with his free hand and pressing his tongue inside him. The young man cries out. And it opens up a whole new set of heady, inappropriate, and unlikely possibilities.

 

The way he fucks and the way he films it gives Ryan a whole new perspective on the man that is Mike Weston. Spit wet fingers come into frame and press inside the other man. He catches the twist of his wrist. The arch of the man’s back and the hitch of his breath. The bite mark from round one. Hands white knuckled in the sheets. Two fingers pulling all the way out of the the shaking body. Three pressing back in. It’s cinematic. 

 

Finally he turns back to the mirror, catching both of them in frame. He says, “Look at me.” He says it like an order. "Look. At. Me."  And something about the darkness in his tone has Ryan arching off his seat and biting back a moan.

 

It seems to take a great effort. The young man lifts his head from the mattress and catches Weston’s steely blue gaze in the mirror. He looks wrecked and wanton, teeth marks worried into his bottom lip and a flush rising from his chest to his cheeks. Weston shoves his boxers down off his skinny hips. He never loses eyes contact with the man beneath him. And with a hand in the small of his back he slips inside him in one slow sweet thrust.

 

Ryan thinks briefly that he should move inside, off the balcony. But then Weston grabs him by the scruff again, pushing him back down, fucking him hard and tortuously slow and Ryan is so close it hurts. But at the same time there’s this nagging feeling that maybe he's enjoying this for all the wrong reasons. Like he is more an intruder than a viewer but tries to push the thought from his mind.

 

This goes on for a bit. There is a gain in momentum. And Weston has his head thrown back and Ryan thinks this is it. But then the young man, he cries out, “Please...” Thats all he has to say. Please. And without question Weston gathers him up, holding him to his chest.

****

Ryan has this flash. This picture in his head. That first day. The man whose name he didn't yet know passing him a mint. He thinks maybe that's Weston's real talent. Anticipating other peoples needs. They still for maybe a breath. Then West grabs the man by the hair, and shoves the phone into his hands. He starts to protest and Weston quiets him with a nip on the shoulder. His hands are shaky. But he goes suddenly still when Weston wraps his fingers around his cock.

 

He says, “You’re gonna miss this, aren’t you? Having my cock in you.”

 

The young man let's out a barking laugh. “ I won’t know what to do with myself.”

 

A sharp jerk of Weston’s hips and the last syllable comes out gasped. “Say it.”

 

Suddenly there's this cold resentment churning up thick in Ryan's stomach.

 

“I’m going to miss- oh fuck, Michael please.”

 

It’s overwhelming. He feels hate for this man. He even hates that this man gets to call him a different name. He gets to call out his given name. And even here, even in his fantasies Ryan is relegated to a safe business like distance.

 

“Say it.”

 

The man smirks and twists against the fist in his hair to give Weston a side long kiss, whispering his reply, once more too soft for the camera to pick it up.

 

Weston picks up his pace again. Every thrust drives the young man up into the tight circle of Weston's fist. The snap of his hips is hard and fast and obscene now. And though it’s rough and dirty and that appeals to Ryan there is still this impenetrable intimacy to it that he can’t quite shake. Like the New Year photo. The man lets his head fall back in Weston's shoulder. Or rather, Weston lets him. And it's not long before both the men in the small window are coming, calling out and pitching over the edge. Ryan cries out, too. In frustration at not being able to follow. But also because the problem with porn is that the people calling out in ecstasy are never calling out for you. He’d been holding out hope that one day he could have that, Weston crying out his name. But he presses his forehead to the other man’s shoulder and Ryan watches it fade away.

****

When he seems to have steadied himself Weston gently takes the phone and sets it aside.

There is white sheet with pink light filtering through it. Heavy breathing. A shift and creak of the mattress. Then, very faint, there is the sound of a kiss and Weston says,"I've got you. It's ok. I've got you." Ryan tosses down the phone and takes a drink straight from the bottle.

 

He showers. Tries to forget. Crawls between his scratchy hotel sheets, cold and aching. He bitterly thinks about deleting the video. Or never giving the phone back. He is sure this will have consequences. Even if he is the only one that knows, there will be fallout from this.

****

And after a while thinks, screw it, he’ll try again. The blowjob video doesn’t have much of the other man, the man that he imagines is probably with Weston right now, awkwardly asleep in a hospital chair or holding Weston’s hand and speaking to him softly while Ryan lies alone in an unfamiliar bed. Well, you don’t see much of his face anyway. Ryan fast forwards through the kissing. And all of a sudden the phone emits a pathetic beep and the screen goes dark as the battery dies.

 

In the morning he hooks the phone up to his car charger. And he sits in the hospital parking lot, just staring at it, for a long time. There are two other videos. One from that same night. The other seemingly from the next morning.

 

In that one the young man, Teddy, is brushing his teeth. Teddy. Teddy. Ryan says it over and over to himself because he knows that he has to stop calling him That Man or The Other Man as if he were some sort of devious usurper, because he’s not. He is a person. Ryan checked. Google is not the FBI database. But it does in a pinch.

****

Theodore “Teddy” Reynald; twenty-eight years old, graduate of Georgetown, Associate Professor of history at some nameless community college in DC, was a vegetarian and Ryan mentally scolded himself for sneering at this fact. He has asthma, family living in Montreal, a lot of tattoos, and interest in horror films, cycling and biographies. Altogether a seemingly nice person.

****

He has a towel around his waist. His dark brown hair is wet and unbrushed. And Weston sneaks up behind him with the camera phone rolling.

****

“Really? Now Michael? Please don’t.”

 

He pans around the bathroom. It is aqua and white and ugly and Weston zooms in on some cracked tile and peeling plaster. “When I get back we’re finding you a new apartment.”

 

He spits in the sink and turns around looking indignant, like they’ve had this conversation before. Weston just laughs, reaches into the frame and swipes a spot of toothpaste from his bottom lip.

 

“I like my apartment,” he says, batting him away with his toothbrush.

 

Weston turns the phone on himself, licks the toothpaste from his thumb and grins. “Minty.”

 

“You’re gross,” he says and squints into the mirror, inspecting the circles under his eyes. “I look gross. You’re defeating the purpose of this exercise. Turn it off.”

 

"Shut up." Weston hooks his chin on the other man’s shoulder and frames them in the bathroom mirror. “Maybe you shouldn’t find a new apartment.”

 

“I’m serious.”

 

“Maybe you should just move in with me.”

 

“Michael...”

 

“I’m serious, too.”

 

There is more. But Ryan can’t watch it.

 

In the latter video the man comes into focus, arranging the angle just so, arranging himself just so on the sofa from the first one. He’s wearing sweats and an academy t-shirt that Ryan assumes belongs to Weston. And he stares at his hands for a long moment then says, “I didn’t know that I would miss you this much. I mean, you’re not even gone but I already do. Or that I would worry. You told me that you spend most of your day tracking down criminals by their bank records and twitter feeds. But I worry like a horrible irrational cliche. And until you come back I expect to be spending a lot of time hugging your dog and wearing your sweaters. And it’s terrible and confusing and I don’t know... I didn’t know I could feel that way. So, come back soon and be safe and....”

 

Ryan takes a deep breath, disconnects the phone and clambers out of the rental car.

 

“...really, please be safe and I love you and I can’t believe I just said that to your phone instead of... Fuck..” he, rakes back his hair and scrubs his face with his hand and snatches up the phone. “Shit. God. Yeah, cause that won’t send him running for the hills.”

 

It makes it hard to be jealous, let alone resent him. Ryan imagines that he started to delete it. But then there is a light and Weston’s  voice from off screen. Ryan wonders if Weston even knows about this video.

 

The nagging is there again, at the back of his consciousness. Ryan knows now that that man, that is what Mike Weston deserves. He checks in at the front desk with a tired looking nurse. The logical conclusion of this statement, this realization, is of course that Ryan is himself less than. But that’s ok, he thinks. He feels less than most the time. So he tamps that feeling down and takes pleasure in the fact that by deciding to give up on him he’s saving Weston, in a way. A morbid way. But a way, nonetheless.

 

He knocks this time. Weston is mostly dressed and sitting at the end of the rumpled bed. The young man, Teddy, is standing between his knees, doing up the last button on Weston’s shirt. He starts to pull away but Weston drags him back.

 

“Just a minute,” he calls. And Weston cranes up to kiss him on the cheek, mouthing thanks against his skin.

 

Teddy rolls his eyes. But his smile betrays him. “Cut it out.” When he see it’s Ryan standing in the doorway, once more, he turns a furious shade of pink.

 

“Mr. Hardy, I’m sorry, we were just, um...”

 

“Ryan, please. And don’t mention it.”

 

Weston’s duffle bag is sitting on the bed beside him and he’s struggling to tie up the laces on a pair of boots.

 

Ryan hopes the expression on his face isn’t too dismayed. “You’re leaving?”

 

“Yeah. The doc should be coming with the paperwork soon. And then we’re catching the train back to DC.”

 

“Well that’s good. I thought they’d keep you longer.”

 

“So did I,” says Weston. “But I'm glad you're here to see us off.”

****

“Well, actually, I came to return your phone.”


End file.
